Sneaking Out Without Me?

Now, as Dr. Q has reminded me as of late, I used to let my campers bend (and occasionally completely smash) some of the written and unwritten rules. I was a trouble maker myself when I was a camper, too. And everywhere else for that matter. Camp was such a positive and rewarding experience for me that I think it might have saved me from some serious problems in regular life, even jail time maybe.

That being said, I used to get some really hyper and attitude ridden kids. I sometimes resented the fact that I (and Corky and Eric) were given this lot by a director who was completely wrong about a great many things, the biggest being my attitude and how much I cared about the camp and my campers. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I wouldn't change a thing if I could do it all over again. But, I always wondered why they bunched these kids up with either one of us, or spread them out between the three of us, every year. In fact, our director would joke about it in meetings. Maybe he thought we could handle it or maybe, as I think, he was trying to create a tough situation for us. Despite this, every single one of my kids had a good time, I never had a complaint and in fact, my campers' parents requested me a number of times. I think I did an OK job at getting some of these "trouble makers" to feel good about themselves. Isn't that the point?

So, there I was, on a Saturday night, with my 8 12-13 year-olds and the movie room above the camp store reserved. It was toward the end of the session and these kids had been talking about "sneaking out" on movie night the entire week. Corky and I had caught them a number of times that week making feeble attempts to get to the girls side of the junior unit. So they were determined. My junior counselor and I were planning to stay awake and stop them, but we were both tired from going out a bit too late the previous Friday, and running around the entire day during one of those "all camp" games.

When we finally got in to the movie room, I was ready to sleep. So I positioned myself in front of the doorway so they would have to go over me to get out. We put the first movie on and they watched quietly and ate pizza. Then the second movie, and they all started to "fake" falling asleep. By this time, my jr. counselor was already snoring so it was up to me. Suffice to say, I fell asleep about 15 minutes in to the second movie. So you can picture it: I look up, tired, eyes getting heavy and everyone is "asleep" snug in their sleeping bags. In, what seemed like a blink of an eye, they are all quietly getting out of their sleeping bags and sneaking toward the door.

I muttered (half under my breath) "guys, go back to sleep, there's no way..." They scurried back in to their places, giggling. A few more minutes, I was asleep again. I opened my eyes and they were again up and making their way toward the door. I mumble "seriously, you are not going anywhere." Again, they scrambled to their sleeping bags. The next time I woke up and I could hear them whispering, "OK", "I think he's out." Someone gets up and makes for the door, this time I let him get through the doorway, down the little hallway and to the creaky staircase. I can hear him at the bottom, "ok, c'mon" whispering loud enough so that everyone can hear. I let the rest of them get up, make it toward the door and down to the bottom of the stairway. Then I got up, followed the last kid down to the bottom of the stairs and just as they were opening the screen door to go out in to the night, I snarled, "What, sneaking out without me?"

They squeaked and fumbled around and then tried to run up the stairs past me, but I blocked their way. I said to all of them "I guess you guys are going to sneak out tonight, no matter what?" They explained that every other cabin did it, and it was their last chance for the summer, and maybe their entire lives... blah, blah, blah. So finally, I said to myself, well, if they are going to go out no matter what, I might as well go with them to supervise. At the time it might well have been a stupid decision, but I was tired and I couldn't think of another way of stopping them.

So, I said, "OK, let's go." I was met with "really?!" "Can WE?!". I said no, but if you are giving me no choice then I might was well go with you. They had a flashlight and some bug spray with them, so I sprayed everyone down and off we went. We first walked to the senior unit since it was the closest area and snuck around in the shadows quietly. They whispered as we let some counselors walk by us. We hit as they talked and passed us without even noticing us. We then made our way up the road, passed the basketball court, to the senior field where I suspected some errant seniors might be gathered. We crept up to them, then I whispered,"1, 2, 3... GO!" and we charged the unsuspecting seniors yelling and jumping around like monkeys waving the flashlight. The seniors scattered like little woodland animals completely unaware of who we were. We laughed so hard that we couldn't stop. I almost couldn't breath I was laughing so hard.

We then made our way through the woods by the midget unit director's house, down the hill into the junior unit. I let them sneak around the unit while I watched. Luckily, no one was up. Then we actually passed Bascom, where, these kids were not allowed to go. I let them in there, we played a little Racer Ball, then to the water front, the boat house, up the water front steps and in to the dining hall. There we grabbed some snacks from the kitchen (cupcakes that were out on the counter) and then back up the steps to the movie room. They were so excited, they stayed up and talked about everything we did, laughing, joking, high-fiving... they even woke up our jr. counselor who had been quietly snoozing. Everyone finally dozed off at about 5am. We would have missed flagpole if it wasn't for the fact that we were already so close.

Now, Mark, my wonderfully unscrupulous director, strolled up to me as we were making our way in to the dining hall and smirked. He said, "I heard a rumor that there was a junior cabin sneaking around last night, know anything about that?" Boldly (and maybe not so smartly) I said, "yup, that was us." He said, "um, US?" I explained to him the situation and how I thought they were going to sneak out no matter what and he laughed it off and said, "well, you did the right thing I guess." I responded with "and it's the most fun these kids have had all session, totally worth it." I don't know if he respected my honesty or if he just forgot, but I fully expected him to turn us in, though it never happened.

I don't know if sneaking out in this fashion would have been considered breaking the rules or not. I guess it probably would have, but at the same time, I feel that it was better than any of the alternatives and maybe even something that these kids would never forget. I mean, who was I to stop them from doing this? They would have gone with or without me. I am proud that I chose to do what I did and that I pulled it off with no major problems. They talked about scaring the hell out of a bunch of seniors for the rest of the session. I didn't have any trouble from that day until the end of the session. They even cleaned the entire cabin that Monday, without me even asking any of them. It was awesome. I wonder if those kids, wherever they are, remember that night. I know I always will. It is one of the best memories I have of that camp and frankly, my entire life.